Transgender rights in the United States

The Equality Act, if passed, would prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity in employment, housing, public accommodations, education, federally funded programs, credit, and jury service.

An applicant may be required to post legal notices in newspapers to announce the name change—rules that have been criticized on grounds of privacy rights and potentially endangering transgender people to targeted hate crimes.

For example, until August 1, 2015, the state of Massachusetts required gender-affirming surgery for a birth certificate change,[74][75] but only a form including a sworn statement from a physician that the applicant is in fact the new gender to correct the sex designation on a driver's license.

However two years prior, Attorney General Ken Paxton ordered workers at DPS to gather a list of people who had changed their sex on their Texas driver's licenses and other department records.

[115] In July 2018, New Jersey enacted legislation to permit people to amend birth and death certificates to reflect their identity as female, male, or "undesignated" without requiring a physician to provide proof of surgery.

"[155] Similar sentiments were expressed in a WPATH public communique: "Anti-transgender health care legislation is not about protections for children but about eliminating transgender persons on a micro and macro scale.

"[156] According to the legal definition of crimes against humanity which is propagated at the Hague by the International Criminal Court, "'extermination' includes the intentional infliction of conditions of life, inter alia the deprivation of access to food and medicine, calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population" when "pursuant to or in furtherance of a State or organizational policy to commit such attack.

[176] Since then, Massachusetts, California, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Vermont, Colorado, Washington, New York, Arizona, Maine, Rhode Island, Oregon, Maryland, and the District of Columbia have passed similar laws.

[206] On October 16, 1976, the Court rejected plaintiff's appeal in sex discrimination case involving termination from teaching job after gender-affirming surgery from a New Jersey school system.

"So long as [dress codes] and some justification in commonly accepted social norms and are reasonably related to the employer's business needs, such regulations are not necessarily violations of Title VII even though the standards prescribed differ somewhat for men and women.

[citation needed] In Glenn v. Brumby, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals held that the Equal Protection Clause prevented the state of Georgia from discriminating against an employee for being transgender.

[234] The U.S. Department of Agriculture requires schools participating in federal food assistance programs to investigate allegations of discrimination due to sexual orientation or gender identity.

Students up to Grade 8 would need "parental consent" to change their "gender markers, pronouns, or preferred name on any school form" or "sex-based accommodations, including locker rooms or bathrooms."

[244] For older students, any discussion of such must be "age appropriate or developmentally appropriate", with the goal to, according to the text of the legislation, "reinforce the fundamental right of parents to make decisions regarding the upbringing and control of their children".

[263] In the wake of the Colorado Springs nightclub shooting, in which a man walked into an LGBTQ nightclub and opened fire, Twitter unbanned the accounts of several major anti-trans figures that had previously been suspended for breaking Twitter policies regarding the targeting of LGBTQ people,[264] while reformatting its hateful conduct policy so that a provision that banned "targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals" was "now effectively dead", according to Vanity Fair.

"[284] Since then, the New York Times has published several more pieces arguing in favor of restricting access to gender affirming healthcare for trans people, many of which have been widely criticized as "misinformation" by medical experts.

[296] Since then, numerous right wing pundits began describing the behavior of parents and teachers who want to allow children to express their transgender identity as grooming, and the term "groomer" has become widely used by conservative media and politicians to imply that the LGBTQ community and their allies are pedophiles or pedophile-enablers.

It also found that Meta, formerly known as Facebook, had accepted up to $24,987 for ads pushing the grooming conspiracy theory, which had been served to users over 2.1 million times, and that Twitter - despite saying groomer slurs were a violation of its hate speech policy - failed to act on 99% of tweets reported for such.

[309][310] On March 23, 2016, North Carolina passed a comprehensive bathroom restriction bill (the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, also known as "HB2"), overriding a prior municipal Charlotte non-discrimination ordinance on the same subject.

[320] On May 3, 2023, the Florida legislature passed the "Safety in Private Spaces Act", which the governor was expected to sign, making it a second-degree misdemeanor to use a bathroom other than that which is designated for people of one's sex assigned at birth.

[322] In September 2021, following extensive right wing protests, a Los Angeles trans woman was charged by the LAPD with felony indecent exposure after she was recorded using the women's changing room at a local nude spa.

They are Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, Minnesota, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Rhode Island, Washington, Oregon, California, Hawaii, Maine, Tennessee, Puerto Rico, Utah, Virginia[338] and New York.

[348][349][350][351] In January of 2025, President Trump signed executive orders Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government and Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation as a fulfillment of these campaign promises.

In response, the Attorney General's office filed an appeal with the Texas Supreme Court, a move that automatically pauses the judge's injunction and allowed the law to go into effect on September 1, 2023, as originally planned.

The report further found that it was not uncommon for trans people to be forced by psychiatric professionals to provide sexual favors in exchange for being allowed continued access to gender affirming medical care.

[505][506] In a case brought by Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD), O'Donnabhain v. Commissioner, for instance, the Internal Revenue Service lost its claim that such treatments were cosmetic and experimental when a transgender woman deducted her GAS procedures as a medical expense.

[503] In April 2024, The Biden administration announced expansive new protections for gay and transgender medical patients, prohibiting federally funded health providers and insurers from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

[511] On August 21, 2022, Florida issued state Medicaid regulations banning coverage of sexual reassignment surgery, hormone replacement therapy, puberty blockers and "any other transgender healthcare initiatives" for all individuals, regardless of age.

In his ruling, the judge declared there to be insufficient evidence of deliberate indifference on the prison's part to the plaintiff's gender dysphoria, and that the plaintiff hadn't sufficiently proven that she'd suffered more than minimal injuries from the sexual assault, stating that he found no support for the notion that a substantial risk of harm or deliberate indifference to it "could be plausibly inferred from a prospective cellmate's conviction of sexual offenses coupled with the alleged vulnerability of a transgender inmate transitioning to a woman in a men's prison".

[544][545] The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025, a bipartisan bill which Biden signed in December 2024, includes language to ban transgender healthcare financing for certain procedures for minor children of military members.

Legal requirements each state has for altering the sex on one's birth certificate as of May 2023
State does not require "Sex reassignment surgery" (SRS) to alter sex on birth certificate
Altering sex on birth certificate requires SRS [ a ] [ b ]
State does not alter sex on birth certificates for trans people
Unclear due to conflict between state law and judicial rulings [ c ]
  1. ^ Some Texas officials have refused to amend the sex on birth certificates to reflect a sex change after the ruling Littleton v. Prange ; however, a judge can order an amendment.
  2. ^ From May 2013 to March 2017 Missouri allowed, through court order via CASE 13AR-CV00240, a quiet workaround of Mo. Ann. Stat. § 193.215(9). The workaround from the original petitioning case was in limbo from 2017 to 2022 until that case (along with another joint case) was reversed in May 2022 by the original petitioner (under a sealed court order) and Missouri now requires sexual reassignment surgery to change gender.
  3. ^ In 2020, Idaho passed legislation prohibiting the changing of sex designations on birth certificates. [ 45 ] In April 2020 a judicial ruling stated the law was unenforcable. [ 46 ] [ 47 ]
The procedure each state uses to alter the sex on one's birth certificate as of September 2021
New birth certificate is issued with correct sex designation
Old birth certificate is amended to correct sex designation
State does not alter sex on birth certificates for transgender people
Jurisdictions that legally recognize a non-binary gender on state documents (January 2025)
Recognition via statute or policy
Recognition via court order only, isolated instances
No legal recognition
Transgender employment rights in the United States prior to the ruling in R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission .
Discrimination prohibited in public and private employment
Discrimination prohibited in public employment only
No enumerated protections
States that prohibit housing discrimination based on gender identity . HUD regulations require all housing providers that receive HUD funding not to discriminate against an individual's gender identity as of June 2020 [ needs update ]
Prohibits housing discrimination based on gender identity
No enumerated protections
State law prohibits LGBT inclusive instruction in the classroom as of May 2023
State law prohibits LGBT inclusive instruction in the classroom up to a certain age and requires parental notification past that age.
State law requires parental notification of LGBT inclusive instruction and allows parents to opt their children out.
State law explicitly requires LGBT inclusion in state curricular standards.
States and counties in the United States which have enacted legislation on restrooms, locker rooms, and other sex-segregated public accommodations, in regard to their access from those who are transgender, or have gender dysphoria as of March 2023:
State, city, or county mandates single-user unisex restrooms in all public buildings
State explicitly prohibits discrimination in restrooms on the basis of gender identity
State legislation or school guidelines currently allow students to use restrooms that correspond with gender identity
State legislation or school guidelines currently prohibit students from using restrooms that differ from biological sex
Currently considering state legislation or school guidelines that would prohibit students from using restrooms that differ from biological sex
State indecent exposure law may be construed to criminalize trans people from undressing in locker rooms or using restrooms that do not match their biological sex
Currently considering bills that may criminalize trans people from undressing in locker rooms or using restrooms that do not match their biological sex
US state hate crime laws as they pertain to gender identity as of June 2020
Gender identity recognized in state hate crimes law
No enumerated protection
Anti-Defamation League , June 2006. Retrieved May 4, 2007
US state laws that ban gender-affirming care for transgender people as of April 2024 [ needs update ]
Law restricting access to gender-affirming care that is unenforceable due to court injunction or executive order
Law that restricts gender-affirming care for transgender minors
Law that restricts gender-affirming care for transgender adults as well as children
US Medicaid coverage of health care related to gender transition for transgender people by state as of August 2023
State with no explicit policy on Medicaid coverage of health care related to gender transition for transgender people
State Medicaid policy explicitly includes health care coverage related to gender transition for transgender people
State Medicaid policy explicitly excludes coverage of health care related to gender transition for transgender people
Map of states by laws protecting transgender rights in private insurance as of July 2020 [ needs update ]
State with no protections for transgender people in insurance coverage
State prohibits discrimination against transgender people in health insurance coverage and prohibits transgender exclusions
State prohibits transgender exclusions in health insurance
Map of state laws which ban transgender athletes from participating in the sport of their gender identity, as of June 2023: [ needs update ]
Law enacted which bans trans athletes from participating in sports based on their gender identity; enforces gender classifications in sports based on registered biological sex
Law preventing trans athletes from participating in sport in their gender identity enacted, but currently blocked from enforcement via court order [ 550 ] [ 551 ]